The Short reviews on ESF-Works present overviews of many ESF funded projects across England. In this section, you can find out more about how European Social Fund projects are delivered on the ground, read about innovative approaches to deliver change, and see how ESF benefits the local economy and promotes social inclusion.

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Women Like Us director, Emma Stewart, gave a presentation regarding the highly successful marketing approach of 'From Playground to Payslip' at a National ESF Publicity conference in London.

WLU is a social enterprise founded by Emma Stewart and Karen Mattison (voted Woman of the Year in May 2009 by She magazine). WLU was also voted Best New Social Enterprise.

In essence, the project targets mums at the school gates and supports them to prepare for work. It also provides a 'matching' service with a wide range of employers looking for quality staff, and a recruitment agency.

The WLU team works continuously to bring on board new employers and build its networks. The overall aim is to provide quality sustainable part-time work that enables women to balance work with their families.

500,000 women in the UK want to work, but their specific needs in terms of childcare and flexible part-time work means that they cannot find the jobs they want. These women aren't eligible for any kind of support. Women Like Us was set up to 'bridge' this divide. Emma provided the background on the organisation, commenting that the model has been recommended for national rollout, though for now they are concentrating their efforts on spreading the service throughout London.

Child poverty is an issue for the capital, with 41 per cent of London children living below the line. Women Like Us provides all kinds of jobs for women from all kinds of employment backgrounds, with a key focus on helping women who face a number of barriers back to work. These barriers take many forms - lack of affordable childcare, the need to improve language skills, rusty IT skills or fear of moving away from benefits all 'block' women from work.

The biggest barrier that would-be 'women returners' face is a lack of quality part-time opportunities. To tackle this, Women Like Us recognises that it needs to work with employers too. Part-time workers are a great resource for small or growing businesses, but many don't know how to implement flexible working structures or even pay staff. The organisation is digging into an untapped market, as the part-time market does not exist in a formal way. Most workless women returners are off the radar of mainstream services, so this project is tacking social deprivation and addressing inequality.

Women Like Us actively goes out and reaches women where they feel most confident about talking about the return to work - at the school gates. Through unique partnerships with 170 schools in the capital, Women Like Us makes access to jobs easier, posting vacancies on school notice-boards, putting leaflets in bookbags and providing an outreach associate to talk to.

The quality of the job opportunities is very high. Vacancy lists reach 60,000 women three times a year. The publicity makes use of a 'trademark' WLU cerise, making it easily recognisable, and promotes a consistent message. Women can ring, e-mail through the web site or attend a coffee morning.

Women Like Us seeks to overcome prejudices that women themselves may hold, namely that part-time work is always associated with low pay and low-value jobs. Women Like Us aims to build confidence and aspirations and to help women think through what they want to do, and to realise that they don't have to downgrade their skills and experience in return for flexibility.

Each participant is assigned a career coach, who will stay with them for the whole journey and help them through proper integrated support, ensuring that they are not lost in the system.

Many women have complex needs, perhaps wanting to attend English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes before their career path can be identified. This is worked out with the mentor, and may not be delivered by the organisation, but individuals will always be signposted to external services that exist to support them. In fact, Women Like Us has built a network of over 300 other organisations, all local services where participants can be signposted. WLU has good links with local press, provides regular news stories and has a good reputation. Yet the project has a single point of access - the school gates.

As Emma says, 'It's a tight-knit network, from the school gates the message spreads. People aren't hard to reach, but services are. Meetings are held in schools so that people get a chance to talk, in a comfortable, local environment.'

A programme of career coaching is available to participants at one of two Women Like Us offices. The core offer is consistent wherever participants choose to attend. Training could include CV-writing skills, career paths, transferable skills, interview skills, networking, starting your own business. One-to-one coaching is also available. Support can be offered for up to six months, depending on the need of beneficiaries.

Participants can ring coaches at any time for advice. There are usually between 10 and 20 people on a course.

40% of women who have accessed funded programmes through ESF are supported into work, with 87% still in work at three months, evidencing a high retention rate, which Women Like Us believes is due to getting the 'match' right between the woman and employer. Many of WLU's own staff team have been recruited through the programme.

The organisation runs three ESF programmes, including LDA and London Councils funding. The project aims for an accessible service - no more than 45 minutes from school to a WLU office.

School partnerships exist in 17 Boroughs, and women have been recruited from 24 Boroughs.

11,000 women have registered with Women Like Us, half of whom have come to the organisation in the last six months; the recession and subsequent need to get back to work is a key driver.

Emma explained how the 'employer-facing' side worked. Employers are reached through a range of methods - through direct mailouts, through word of mouth and also through the schools, as many parents are also employers. Again, the branding and message are simple and effective. For example, 'How to get a £40k candidate for £20k!' messages are designed to catch the employer's eye. Women Like Us' recruitment team is divided into sales managers and account managers. Sales managers work to find the jobs; account managers make the match between roles and women. There are 80-90 enquiries a month from employers. Women Like Us' recruitment team specialise in helping employers to understand how part-time and flexible working can fit with their business and also how to design part-time roles. There is support for creating a vacancy and advice on streamlining and planning.

The employer can use the service in a number of ways: a full candidate search, job match or just a jobsearch board vacancy, which will go to all 11,000 women on the database. Women Like Us also provide training to employers, helping them to implement part-time working into their business effectively. 'It's critical to address both the recruitment and the training for employing part-time staff,' says Emma. This service generates income for WLU to continue their work.

Recently Women Like Us have been awarded The Queen's Award for Enterprise (Innovation) for the way in which they reach women.

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